OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Democrats are running away from President Joe Biden like a lepper, not wanting to be seen with a president whose approval rating is so low he would have to dig to go further.
And as he prepares for his speech on voting rights (read a speech to federalize elections) even Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is campaigning to be the governor of Georgia, and who has made the voting issue one of the main issues of her campaign, is not going to be seen with him when he gives his speech in her state, The Daily Mail reported.
“The next few days, when these bills come to a vote, will mark a turning point in this nation. Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light overshadow, justice over injustice?,” he is supposed to say, according to White House transcripts.
“I know where I stand. I will not yield. I will not flinch. I will defend your right to vote and our democracy against all enemies foreign and domestic. And so the question is where will the institution of United States Senate stand?,” he is going to say.
Abrams said she cannot appear with him because of a scheduling conflict but she offered her support on Twitter.
“The fight for voting rights takes persistence. As MLK exhorted, ‘The clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now before it is too late.’ Thank you, @POTUS, for refusing to relent until the work is finished. Welcome back to Georgia where we get well done,” she said.
But as the MSNBC “Morning Joe” show hosts said, if Biden had a high approval rating someone who would want to be governor of their state would make time to be seen with him.
The fight for voting rights takes persistence. As MLK exhorted, “The clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now before it is too late.” Thank you, @POTUS, for refusing to relent until the work is finished. Welcome back to Georgia where we get good done. #FTVA #JLVRAA
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) January 10, 2022
“I am not criticizing Stacey Abrams here,” host Joe Scarborough said, Mediaite reported. “I am making a comment about the political standing of Joe Biden as seen from a woman who’s running for governor of Georgia and wants to win that election. Politicians show up with presidents when they have 52% of approval ratings.”
“Politicians don’t show up with presidents when their approval ratings may be in the 30s in the state,” he said.
“This is politics 101. I find it fascinating, and it speaks less to Stacey Abrams that really does than it does what she perceives Joe Biden’s political standing to be in the state of Georgia right now that she’s not showing up in an event that was custom-made for herm” he said saying that Abrams is the “one champion of voting right and she’s the one had Joe Biden wins the state of Georgia. She’s on the forefront of everything we are talking about today.”
“All the more reason you’d think she would be there unless she thought it didn’t help her campaign running for governor of Georgia,” he said.
But Abrams is not the only one who has issues with Biden, as some progressives plan to protest, The Daily Mail said.
Ahead of the trip, the groups asked Biden not to come to the state without a plan to pass voting rights legislation and some are now boycotting the president’s event.
‘We’re beyond speeches. We’re beyond events,’ LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter told reporters Monday in a briefing. ‘What we are demanding is federal legislation.’
The Asian American Advocacy Fund, Black Voters Matter Action Fund, GALEO Impact Fund, Inc., New Georgia Project Action Fund, and Black Voters Matter announced ahead of Biden’s visit that they will not attend.
Abrams’ campaign did not detail the ‘conflict’ that is causing her to miss the president’s speech. Her voting rights advocacy worked helped Biden win the state of Georgia in the 2020 election.
The White House, in response to the boycotts, blasted out a list of civil rights leaders attending the speech, including high-profile names like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP President Derrick Johnson, People for the American Way President Ben Jealous, and Fighting for Our Vote’s Leah Daughtry.
Bernice King, chief executive at the King Center and daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., will meet with the president during his trip and be at his speech but says she is frustrated by the lack of progress on federal legislation.
‘Just as my father went to the White House with (President Lyndon B.) Johnson and then went to the streets in Selma, Alabama, I’m with the whole process,’ she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
